week 13:The trace metal team: Official opening of the Dirck Gerritsz lab

This week will be a special week for us and for the base itself. At the end of the week we will have the official opening of the Dirck Gerritsz laboratory. Dirck Gerritsz hmmm that does not really ring a bell does it? We all know Amundsen, Shackleton and Scott as the famous polar explorers but Dirck Gerritsz is not the name that we connect with polar research. However we should do so and we should be proud of it. It might be that this Dirck Gerritsz was the first who reached the Antarctic and there is proof of that. In fact in the marble floor in the Royal Palace Amsterdam in Dam Square the western hemisphere is projected and a small piece of coastline of Dirck Gerritsz Land can be seen! Especially for the opening of the laboratory a special booklet was made and is called: Het Dirck Gerritsz Laboratorium, het verhaal achter de naam.

Special booklet: Het Dirck Gerritsz Laboratorium.	The western hemisphere in the marble floor of the royal Palace in Amsterdam with a small piece of coastline of Dirck Gerritszland, Antarctica

Nevertheless the opening is at the end of the week and we continue our sampling for the trace metal program. Everything works well and we are getting into a routine of sampling and processing the water. We will sample along a line (transect) from the limits of the boating area towards the Sheldon glacier and from the surface to the bottom. This will give us information about the effect that the melt water of the glacier has on the amount of trace elements in the water. Does it indeed bring a lot of dirt and therefore iron into the bay which may fuel the phytoplankton bloom? Or are other factors influencing the amount of trace elements in the water. With this transect we hope to answer these questions were we expect to see an increase of trace metals towards the glacier.

Sampling strategy	Retreat of the Sheldon glacier

Thursday morning, the Dutch delegation supposed to arrive but…. They didn’t. Bad weather in Punta was the reason for the delay, perhaps tomorrow. The Dutch delegation consist of people from NWO , ministries, a newspaper journalist and television who will bring the news to the Netherlands.

Friday morning, the Dutch delegation supposed to arrive but…… they didn’t. Bad weather in Punta is the reason for the delay, perhaps tomorrow.
Saturday morning, the Dutch delegation supposed to arrive …… and they did! Good for them as their visit supposed to be four days and now already has been shortened by 50% but at least they made it!
After lunch they had a brief introduction by the base commander and after that the delegation including the majority of the Dutch scientist set off to the wharf and into the boats for boating ion the local area.
Good for them is that humpback whales arrived in the bay to say hello!

Humpback whale (pictures by Dick vd Kroef - NWO)

Also during sampling we had some close encountered with whales. At this moment the bay is visited by Minke whales, humpback whales and we also have seen orka’s! The group of orka’s that visit the bay is a famous group and are acting in the BBC documentary Frozen Planet. Despite the fact that they have already been on television, they did not show up this time for the cameras of our Dutch group… However both Johann and Patrick had the privilege to see them when they were at the wharf on a previous day.

Famous orka’s from Frozen Planet (BBC documentary)

This whole weekend the opening of the Dutch facility is the mail thing. The Saturday is filled with the booting of the delegation and all small interviews are being recorded. It is also Australia day today and that means that there is a cricket game in the afternoon and a bbq in the evening. The bbq is obvious outdoors and will take place on north beach. Nice place along the water were occasionally a penguin will show up. However with a strong northerly wind it was far from being warm over there..… Brave people show up in a pair of jeans and without gloves but it didn’t took long or everybody was packed in bouilersuits and 2 pair of gloves. But the bbq is nice and the beer stays cold and after all we are in the Antarctic!!
Sunday evening we had them after some delay the official opening of the Dirck Gerritsz laboratory, or here at base also known as the Dutch Lab as they have no idea how to pronounce this… At 19:00h sharp the opening should take place, however not after some delay……….… this time the orka’s were the one to be blamed, they showed up at the wharf at exactly 18:58h, good planning! After the official opening we were all invited for a Champagne drink in the bar and we got a nice video message of “Prins Willem Alexander” who will become our king in a couple of months we found out not much later. Prins Willem Alexander and Prinses Maxima visited Rothera a couple of years ago and this basically was the start of what we now have here, a full operational Dutch laboratory in the Antarctic.

The Dirck Gerritsz laboratory is a barn in which 4 special lab containers can be placed. We are already familiar with lab containers as we use them also on board ships. The good thing regarding this set up is that you can create 4 different but specific laboratories and if in the future there is a demand on other specific lab space, you can easily change one or more of these containers. 

Next day, Monday morning we said goodbye to the Dutch delegation and Hein de Baar who travelled with them back to Holland, straight from Rothera all the way back to Amsterdam, another 35 hours of travelling.
The sampling is a routine business now. We go out whenever we can and we aim to sample the whole water column. However we also take part in the RATS (RotherA Time Serie, this is one station in the bay that has been sampled by our British colleagues year round for more then 10 years.) program, a shallow station primarily focuses on the biology in Raider bay. And we participate in the field work with our colleagues from Groningen in a shallow (0-75meter) transect from the glacier offshore primarily looking at the influence of trace metals on the biology. However the wind is a limiting factor on the sampling program and therefore the pressure on the boats can be quite high. Above 20 knots it is not possible to go out by boat and these wind speeds are not extreme for this area. A couple of days wind and everybody want to go boating and we only have a limited amount of boats... Another limiting factor this week was the major incident exercise that took place.

Major incident exercise

Saturday morning around 9:30 the fire alarms went off! Panic all over the place! Major small fire in one of the labs, people running out! Screaming, wounded, burned or major head wounds! At least 6 people did not show up at their muster station!! Panic!??! Not at all, due to the professional approach people were within 1h22m on their way to Punta Arenas, however among them, sad but true, one casualty.